Bryan Gil — Scouting Profile
A football scouting profile of 18-year old Spain U19 and Sevilla winger, Bryan Gil
18-year old Bryan Gil recently earned himself promotion from Sevilla Atlético (Sevilla’s B/Reserve team) to Sevilla FC, the first team in the Spanish first division. According to Transfermarkt, his estimated market value has risen from about €300,000 to €10,000,000 in less than a year. This alone does not fully demonstrate his rise through the youth ranks that began at Sevilla in 2012. He made his professional debut for the reserve team on August 26, 2018 and is a full member of the first team a year later, making his first-team debut on January 6, 2019. Aside from this, Gil has played regularly for the Spanish U17, U18, and U19 national teams over the last two and a half years.
As demonstrated in the video above, Gil is not the most productive member of Sevilla’s offense in terms of goals and assists. He is not the fastest nor biggest player for Sevilla but he consistently finds a way to involve himself in their build-up play. He often links with one of the interior midfielders or one of the forwards to advance the ball forward to more promising attacking positions. Similar to former Sevilla and Spain U19 winger Gerard Deulofeu, Gil is not afraid to take players on 1v1 with his back to the sideline cutting in from the right or left wing. Again, he does not compare in pace to Deulofeu but he has a similar tendency to fearlessly take on defenders from wide positions.
After looking at the lack of goal and assist production, it is important to consider the many other aspects of his game to assess the value he brings to his team. Looking at his average passing numbers from his appearances last season, he averaged about 70% passing accuracy in league play. While not bad, this percentage is not particularly impressive in comparison to some of his fellow Spanish forwards and wingers. He is still just 18-years old but he has a ways to go before he can be compared to wingers like Jesús Navas, Pedro Rodríguez, or even the ex-Sevilla man Gerard Deulofeu. Lastly, despite his few goal/assist contributions and 70% passing accuracy, he still manages to attract the ball to his feet. While Gil made numerous substitute appearances last season, he found the ball quickly.
In most of his appearances, his teammates had around 55–95 touches for the duration of a match (playing about 90 minutes.) Despite coming on as a substitute in the 60th minute and later, Gil often had upwards of 20 touches. The ability to come on and immediately attract the ball without losing it or being dispossessed often adds to his profile of being a fearless player, ready to get involved and take on players right out of the gate. This is impressive for any player, let alone an 18-year old who wasn’t even a first team player until July 2019.
Watching Gil play alongside older and more experienced players versus top-flight opposition will definitely reveal more of what he is capable of, as well as what he lacks as a young footballer. He will likely never be the leading goalscorer nor the top assist-provider at Sevilla but he is sure to provide some entertainment as he develops as a professional on one of the Sevilla flanks. It will be interesting to watch Gil compete with talented and experienced new signings in Lucas Ocampos from Marseille and Rony Lopes from AS Monaco.
Potential and Predictions
Bryan Gil — Potential: 7.45/10. While Gil has made his way into the Spanish youth national teams and regularly features on the Sevilla bench, I do not see him making his way into a world-class club like Manchester City, United, Liverpool, Barcelona or Madrid in the near future. Still, Gil has a bright future especially if he continues to build chemistry with his teammates leading the attack at Sevilla.
Thank you for reading! I hope to share more scouting profiles, among other articles, in the near future. If you have questions about how players like Lisandro Martínez at Ajax or Erling Braut Håland at Red Bull Salzburg are signed and scouted, check out my article series! Please feel free to share your thoughts and comments with me here and via email at schmidtker8@gmail.com.
P.S. I might present this scouting profile in Spanish and/or Portuguese. If this would be of interest to any reader, please let me know!
